I had to write this post as this has happened to me twice within the past week.

Before you send a correction notice on a quiz, PLEASE take the time to read the interesting info. An explanation could very well be found within the interesting info. This will save you the time from writing a correction notice, the player the time from responding and letting you know that their quiz does not, in fact, have an error, etc.

Thank you!

~LadyM, FT editor

_________________________"Without the darkness, how would we see the light?" ~ Tuvok

Good idea! I recently received 2 more correction emails regarding a question of a historical nature. All my research of the history of the event in question tells me I am accurate but apparently a few others don't agree with the historical facts and insist I make changes. I have reworded the question and rechecked all the historical info and they are still not satisfied. It's rude and annoying to keep insisting on corrections. They should read up on the history instead of harassing me.I often see answers in the religion category I don't agree with but I can understand that it's a matter of interpretation and I don't harass the quiz writer over it.

As an editor who spends a lot of time monitoring the corrections, I have some thoughts about this.

Usually, if you are getting many corrections on a question, that is a sign that something is wrong. Your facts may indeed be correct, but your question may be worded confusingly, or one of your insorrect answer options may be too close to the correct one, or maybe you are just not explaining your answer well enough in the interesting info.

Repeated corrections on the same question mean that something needs to change. If you can't think of a useful change to make, discuss it with the editor monitoring the corrections. Between the two of you, you should be able to come up with a solution.

The biggest problem, agony, is when it's a misconception that causes the most correction notes. When people are constantly being taught one thing, and in fact, that one thing isn't true, it causes people to send correction notes about the thing they were taught. (In my case, it's about what a dun is vs what a buckskin is.) It's just very frustrating.

Yes, that can be a problem all right. The best thing is to go into it in some detail in the interesting info, but there will always be some people who don't read that, and fire off a note, won't there? At least if you have explained your position well in the info, the editor checking the notes will see that the player is a dweeb, and delete it.

I explain the difference quite explicitly-for the reason you said. I even provided a link for people to go to find out more about the differences. So, all I can do it when I respond, is tell them the difference and a few quotes (and links) that support my point (which I find abundantly, in the dun vs buckskin debate.)

Quote:I had to write this post as this has happened to me twice within the past week.

With nearly 350 quizzes on line, covering almost every category, then by the 'Law of Averages' you're going to get more incorrect correction notices than most other authors Your point though is a good one, and it is annoying to receive completely inaccurate correction notes, where it's clear the sender hasn't bothered to glance at the accompanying notes to a question.Sometimes authors give answer choices which cause confusion, where one of the alternatives could also be correct - or almost correct - depending on your point of view or how you read the question. In such cases, I think a correction notice is reasonable even if innacurate. Sometimes too, authors use an uncommon spelling of a word, where there is an alternative and far more widespread spelling. Authors who insist on doing this, should expect and just put up with spelling corrections!None of the forementioned applies to Ladymacb of course, many of whose interesting and informative quizzes I have tackled!

Some of you complained about quiz players who send wrong or too hasty correction notes. I could say the same of several quiz authors, though. They BELIEVE they are right, so they don't even check the suggested corrections, or they verify them using simply the same inaccurate sources they employed to write their quizzes. In all this time on Funtrivia, I have sent dozens of correction notes. Always justified, always polite, always with the best of intentions. Some authors thanked me and made the changes, some corrected the inaccuracies without a word, some totally ignored my notes. Once in a while, i. e. on those rare occasions I felt patient, I sent a second note, and the authors finally amended the mistakes. They didn't even think of thanking me, as if they were doing ME a favour. I am still wondering why I bothered. LOL In my opinion, players who send correction notes are mostly in good faith, so it is useless to complain. On the contrary, it is an act of common courtesy to thank them for investing time and energy for us, and, if we believe they are incorrect, to explain them the reasons. It is an ethical question, too. We have a moral responsibility for what we publish: articles, books, or quizzes. We do write for an audience, and then we ignore it?I am a journalist, and I am used to taking seriously the reactions of the readers to my articles. All messages get a civilised answer from me, even the angry (and the stupid) ones. Are quizzes really something different?

Arlesienne, with over 50 quizzes online, I get quite a few correction notices. With each correction, I research the correct answer. In some cases, I'm correct. I tell the person why I'm correct, politely and I thank them for taking my quiz.

If I find that they're correct, I reply to them, thanking them for seeing the mistake and letting me know. I tell them that I changed it to the correct answer, and thank them for playing my quiz.

If I find that they're not right but the question is a bit ambiguous, I thank them and change the question (or whatever needs changed) and tell them what I've changed.

When I send a correction notice, I tell them specifically what's wrong and why it's wrong. Most of the time, I've researched the right answer, so I know it-in which case I tell them what the right answer is (usually in spelling). I hardly ever get a thank-you.

Just an addition to the discussion about getting answers to your corrections. One thing to remember is that many authors no longer visit the site. This means that editors must make any needed changes, if they can find enough information.

I usually take care of the corrections for my categories, I look at them on average twice a week. This morning I have dealt with well over 100 correction notes, both justified and complete nonsense, and I'm not done yet. This is not unusual. I know that, strictly speaking, I should send all of those players a note, but, realistically, I'm just not up to it.

Chances are very good that when you do not get a reply to your note, the author is off site, and it is a poor, eye-strained, overworked editor making the changes. (Feeling sorry for me yet?)

Even when authors do continue to visit and contribute to the site, archived quizzes cannot be amended by the original author. In these cases, all the author can do is note whether or not they agree with the correction, and their reasons.I've sent hundreds of correction notes, mostly for typos or spelling errors, and rarely receive a reply. This doesn't bother me at all, and I never go back to the quiz to check whether or not my correction has been actioned.

What a heartbreaking destiny, Agony! Thank goodness, I always have a good stock of Kleenex, and use a waterproof mascara. :-)I must confess, I didn't know editors took care of correction notices too. It sounds enervating, and you have all my sympathy. Maybe you could create an "anti-badge" for players who send wrong corrections. The first "anti-badge" after five notes, then after ten, etc. Aramis, I don't send a correction, then check hourly if the mistake has been amended, impatiently tapping my fingers on the keyboard. I notice that my suggestions have been ignored, when I play Global Challenge, for example, and I see a mistake reappearing again and again. Or, in a couple of cases, because I accidentally took the same quiz twice. I have neither the time nor the energy to jump on the correction button as soon as I see a typo. I mostly send correction notices on major factual mistakes, or spelling mistakes concerning my "mother tongues", Italian and German. I have never lost my sleep because my notes had no effect, or because I received no reply. In some cases, though, I was really surprised, and curious to know the reason. Thanks, Agony, for letting me know at least one reason. From now on, I'll always blame you. LOL

One thing I have noticed about sending corrections from questions appearing in the global challenge, is that you might want to take a look at the actual quiz it came from first. I have seen corrections that needed to be made in the question, only to find that it had already been corrected in the quiz itself, and probably just hadn't updated in the challenge yet. Now, I always play the original quiz before sending a correction notice on questions from the challenge.

_________________________
"One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way." -Frank Smith

Who said anything about 'checking hourly' or 'impatiently tapping the keyboard'. You've just completed the quiz, and see the correction and rating sections, so what 'time and energy are involved? It takes seconds to send a simple correction, and thus improve the quiz, so why not do it? If there are several typos and spelling errors, then it's even more important to submit corrections.

One of the things you have to remember about changes to the Global challenge is that the question pool is only refreshed periodically. So even after the change has been made to the quiz that the question came from, it might still take a while for the change to make it to the cache where the questions for the challenge are kept.

"Checking every hour" and "impatiently tapping the keyboard", were intentional exaggerations, and humourously meant. Sorry about that, Aramis. That was just my strange way to say: "I don't care that much if the mistakes I pointed out are amended or not, and I never go back and check, exactly like you."Of course corrections are important! Did I say anything else? On the contrary: corrections, compliments, criticisms, all forms of direct communication with an "audience", are fundamental, in my opinion. When I notice a mistake in a quiz, though, especially a factual one, I never trust my memory, and to avoid bothering the authors (and the editors, as I know now) with a wrong correction, I do first an accurate research. That takes time, and I don't always have it.

Apology accepted Mirella, and no hard feelings! As you'd addressed me specifically in your post, I'd took it your comments were directed at me rather than being general.I consider the sending of accurate correction notices to be a service both to funtrivia and to the quiz author involved. Spelling and punctuation errors, including typos, are wrong and do nothing for the benefit or reputation of the site or the individual author. There is no shame in having a minor error pointed out, and I received one myself only last week. I'd referred in the notes of one question to the 1930's and 1940's, and a player had pointed out the apostrophes were incorrect, and should have read 1930s and 1940s. I thanked the player, and told them I agreed with the correction, but as the quiz was archived, couldn't alter it myself. I informed the category editor, who then made the correction, and sent me a note to let me know.I've sent correction notes for spelling errors on quizzes which have been played over 1,000 times, so obviously it's not an important issue to most players, but if I see something wrong it just seems sensible and courteous to politely report it!

Annastrophic, there's a thread in the Feedback forum where Word Wizard corrections can be posted. Here it is.

Since the Word Wizard is constructed in a different way from Quizzyland, there are no authors or editors as such. Terry plans to go through periodically and fix the problems that have been flagged in the above thread. It may take a while for the issue to be corrected, but it will be done!

_________________________Just because there's twilight doesn't mean we can't tell the difference between night and day

Just a note to say that I'm one of those annoying people who sends out correction notices. I always check my facts as well as I can before I send the notice (which sometimes causes problems because the correction page doesn't include the question I'm working on and I forget the question and/or answers before I get it sent), and usually I don't hear anything back. I try to be as nice as possible, especially when it's a minor error like spelling. I didn't know the editors review the corrections as well, although I have gotten one question back from an editor when the author was long gone, so I'll say "thanks" to all you editors who do that (usually) thankless task.

Now to the purpose of my note: Perhaps it would be possible to include a comment box at the end of a quiz to go along with the rating, in case no particular question needs correction, but the quiz-taker would like to make some further comment on one question or the whole quiz. Some kind of lesser level of comment than a correction, like a question or compliment, to go with individual questions would also be useful, and that could travel with the question into the Hourly and Global quizzes. *Take Quiz* *Send Correction* *Send Comment/Question* That would also prevent a random comment from taking a question off-line until it's answered, yes?